Phone book: Toshiba's new mobile phone, the Biblio, aims to capitalize on the e-book boom. The Biblio, which is a KDDI handset under its au brand, looks at first glance like an iPhone clone with its 3.5-inch touchscreen. However, the phone sports unusually good e-book reading credentials. In particular, the Biblio comes with "Book Player," a book- reading program that operates with KDDI's EZ Book e-book service. It also has a built-in electronic dictionary. On the hardware side the Biblio's screen has an exceptional 480×960 resolution, helping it to display books in sharp relief. The screen can also be altered to make it hard for others to see what is on the screen.

In support of its book-reading function, the phone has 7 gigabytes of memory, good for storing up to 5,000 books. Provided with a wireless LAN module, the phone can use KDDI's wireless LAN service, Wi-Fi WIN, for a monthly charge of ¥525. Toshiba promotes the phone's wireless abilities as an easy means for downloading e-book content, and it has built in one final stand out feature into the Biblio in the form of a slide-out keyboard. In itself, this is nothing exceptional, but the Biblio has a clever trick. The keyboard has touch keys and changes its form depending on whether the phone is held vertically or horizontally, with a sensor detecting which way the phone is held. When held vertically, the keyboard has a standard numeric keypad on the bottom half. Held horizontally, it offers a qwerty keyboard. The latter style is useful for taking advantage of the phone's dictionary abilities.

The phone also automatically changes the display of books depending on whether the portrait or landscape mode is used. Beyond its individual tricks, the phone incorporates the typical cell-phone assets, such as 1seg TV viewing, ability to watch videos and listen to music, and a 5.1-megapixel autofocus camera. The Biblio was released last week in either black or off-white colors. Check your au dealer for pricing. www.kddi.com